


Chocobo

by EmeraldTrident



Category: Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Cute, Drabble, Flashback, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29486688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldTrident/pseuds/EmeraldTrident
Summary: Cloud Strife, soldier and mercenary, still enjoys cuddling his childhood stuffed animal sometimes.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 22





	Chocobo

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a tiny drabble I couldn’t stop thinking about! Please enjoy 😭💖

He remembered the day he got the stuffed toy. Hand in hand with his mother at the annual Nibelheim fair, he had just celebrated his fifth birthday the day before. 

His mother hadn’t had time in her busy schedule to get him a gift, but promised little Cloud he could pick out any one thing at the fair and whatever he chose would be his. 

Cloud wasn’t the most popular child in town. In fact, he didn’t have any friends at all. He hadn’t had a birthday party, so the promise of the fair and a gift sent him over the moon with excitement. 

The fair had been a lot of fun. Cloud distinctly remembered the smell of peanuts, the petting zoo, and the fluffy pink cotton candy, but most of all he remembered the small kiosk toy shop set up in the center of town. 

Cloud tugged his mother by the hand over to the shop to peruse the toys. 

“One toy, sunshine,” she said with a smile watching her young son’s face light up with glee at the possibilities. 

Cloud picked up multiple toys to test them out, but in the end had decided on a little foam sword. His mother agreed to the purchase and they stood waiting in line to pay. 

Cloud’s eyes wandered as they waited, swinging the little sword up and down out of boredom, when he caught sight of a small stuffed Chocobo bird on the check out table. 

It looked soft and had a cartoonish appearance. It was cute and looked like it would be the perfect size to cuddle. He reminisced on earlier that afternoon, seeing some big real live Chocobos in the petting zoo. He had been too scared to go near them, but they looked friendly enough. 

Cloud looked back and forth at his foam sword and the bird, contemplating his decision. 

“Mommy, can I get that instead?” Cloud said, nodding toward the stuffed toy. 

“Of course, sunshine,” she smiled, petting her son’s messy blonde hair. “Anything you want.” 

She reached for the toy and handed it to Cloud, who immediately cuddled it tight to his chest. Yes. He had made the correct decision. 

* * *

Nineteen years later, Cloud still had the toy. It was one of the few things he had been able to salvage from his past life. One of the very few things he remembered.

Back when everything was so simple. 

It was worn and the wings were a bit singed, one of its glass eyes had a large crack in it, but it was the same old friend. 

Some nights, after making sure whatever room he was staying in for the evening was locked tight, Cloud would bring the toy out of his bag and cuddle it to sleep. Just as he had as a child. 

Often, when he focused on the smell of the toy hard enough he could recall old memories. Like his mother’s perfume, or her cooking. The smell of his old elementary school, and his bicycle. He remembered always putting the toy in the basket of his bike and taking him for a ride around the town, making sure to be home in time for lunch. 

The toy was his childhood constant. It was with him every day and at every holiday, every birthday, and every evening as he settled down under a starry Nibelheim night, until he was a teenager. 

He had put the toy away for years, thinking he was too old for such childish things. But now, at twenty-four, as long as nobody walked in on him cuddling the thing, Cloud didn’t care. 

It was still soft, still his, and it held the key to happy memories, always there to offer him a sense of comfort. And there was no shame in that. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I love comments! 💖


End file.
